B2B Sales Trends Report: Winning strategies 2023

In this webinar, Upsales CEO Daniel Wikberg talks about what differentiates the fastest-growing companies and what their winning strategies are in 2023.

We crunched the numbers so that you don’t have to, providing you with eight actionable data points you can use to grow your business,

Top Three Takeaways

• Since the pandemic, fast-growing companies have focused much more on new customer acquisition than before.
• Fast-growing companies focus more on their top 20% of highest-paying customers.
• Fast-growing companies expect twice as high performance from their sales organisation

Fast-Growing Companies Are Much Better At New Customer Acquisition

As Daniel backs up with his own experience, successful fast-growing companies see sales as a much higher priority. As a result, more focus is put on going after new clients, which is why these companies tend to have much better new customer acquisition numbers.

Fast-Growing Companies Focus More on New Customer Acquisition Now Compared to the Beginning of the Pandemic

Since the pandemic, fast-growing companies have focused much more on new customer acquisition than before. In fact, almost twice the percentage share of growth comes from new customers for fast-growing companies, as it now makes up 26% of their revenue rather than 14%.

Daniel believes that is because of the uncertainty at the pandemic's start. Many companies managed risk at this point and are now starting to push harder for new customer acquisition.

Fast-Growing Companies Focus More on Their Top 20% Highest-Paying Customers

Daniel is a huge advocate of this process, and he is a big believer of the 80/20 rule. 

“One huge part of gaining rapid growth is the ability to say no,” he explains. “Having the guts to focus on top-priority clients and not trying to do ten things simultaneously is extremely important.”

Upsales data also backs up this view, as many of our highest-quality customers churn less and higher customer satisfaction.

But what does that mean for the other 80% of your customers? Daniel explains it’s important to also look at the growth potential of these customers and rank them accordingly. 

However, if you can’t see growth or growth potential in customers, it could be worth looking elsewhere in the future.

The Average Deal Size is 2.76x for Fast-Growing Companies Compared to Other Organisations

While this statistic is very impressive, Daniel does explain several factors that come into play here, including the product they sell, for example.

However, he does explain this shows a clear shift from simply selling to new customers to now also looking at current high-value customers as potential opportunities for upselling opportunities.

Fast-Growing Companies Have a Higher Average Deal Size, and They Tend to Have Longer Sales Cycles

On average, the sales cycle for a new client with a fast-growing client is 63 days, compared to 53 days for other organisations. They also have an average sale cycle of 39 days for existing customers, compared to a 35-day average for other companies.

When you consider how little the difference in time is, compared to how much bigger the deal size average is for fast-growing companies, you can start to see just how effective these high-performing companies are at selling their brand and services.

Fast-Growing Companies are Better at Forecasting

As Daniel explains, he believes all sales reps are terrible at forecasting, regardless of the company. 

However, he was surprised to see how well fast-growing companies forecasted their sales.” There’s almost always some degree of chaos in fast-growing companies,” he explains. “If you’re growing fast, so many things are happening and changing.”

Therefore, it’s even more impressive that their forecasting is so accurate.

Fast-Growing Companies Expect Twice as High Performance From Their Sales Organisation

The average sales quota for a fast-growing company is twice as high, and Daniel believes many sales managers and CEOs are worried that setting high standards may scare off the best employees.

However, the results suggest the opposite. With the right people on the team, they will become more motivated by the high quotas, leading to even better results.

Sales Organisations at Fast-Growing Companies Keep a Considerable Higher Pace Than Others

Daniel explains that this is the foundation of high-performing customers. “You can do everything perfectly, but at the end of the day, you need someone actually to go and speak to the customer,” he explains.